Before they could dwell on that, Skinny looked at Alex and asked, "Have you received any threats? Direct communications in any form from the killers?"
"No, not a word."
This was apparently a bad omen, as both policemen seemed to frown at the same time. As if by hidden cue, Fatty eventually shook his head and spoke up. "Not good. Typically they warn you beforehand. You do this, or we'll do that."
"Sometimes it's Chinese water torture," Skinny threw in, showing off his own mastery of the subject. "Other times it's a sledgehammer, and, to be perfectly frank, this has all the hallmarks of the latter. These people are professionals. They choose how and when to make their approach."
If they were trying to scare Alex and his employees, they were succeeding nicely. A few chairs were pushed back. One or two executives uttered loud groans.
After another quiet pause, Fatty said, "Here's the pattern we're seeing. Number one, they knew the names of your employees, their addresses, and their personal habits. I don't need to tell you what this implies. Your company has been under their eye for a long time, maybe even penetrated from the inside. Who knows how many of your people are on their payroll, or how many of you are targeted for hits. Number two, the potpourri of killing methods is a carefully scripted message in itself-they can kill you however and whenever they want, wherever you are, whatever you're doing."
The two officers continued batting around theories and chilling speculations, oblivious to the sheer horror they were inciting. Alex and his underlings exchanged piercing looks before Alex, with a discomfited shrug, looked away and contemplated a white wall. Nobody needed to say it: resentment cut like a knife through the room. Alex had all those layers of personal protection-those six beefy bodyguards, a private home with the best security systems money could buy, an armored Mercedes limousine, and a lifestyle that kept him off the streets, out of harm's way.
The four senior executives in the room, just like the rest of the employees of Konevitch Associates, were sitting ducks. Totally defenseless. Morgue meat, all of them.
And the cops were right. It took less than a year after the disintegration of the Soviet Union for Moscow to descend into chaos. Brutal murders were a daily event, soldiers were hawking their weapons and ammunition on street corners for a few measly rubles, unemployment had shot through the ceiling. In the clumsy rush to privatize, prices had climbed to dizzying heights, and public services, which had never been decent, deteriorated, then collapsed altogether. A long, fierce winter of misery set in. Hundreds of thousands of Muscovites couldn't afford oil to heat their homes, to buy decent food or clothing, and were turning to crime to make ends meet.
The newspapers were loaded with stories about the self-ennobling extravagances of the newly rich and famous, while hundreds starved or froze to death in Russia's arctic winter. Nobody was going to feel sorry for Konevitch Associates. No matter how many of its well-fed executives were shot, bombed, or chopped up, nobody would waste an ounce of pity. And the drumbeat of news stories about the shining toys and refurbished palaces of the newly rich worked like a tantalizing announcement to the criminals: "Here it is, boys! Come and get it."
When the two officers finished batting around the possibilities, Alex said, in an accusatory tone, "So you can't protect us?"
"To be honest, no," Fatty replied with a sad shake of the head and an earthquake of chin wobbles. "These days, we barely have enough manpower to haul the bodies to the morgue."
"What do you suggest, then?" Alex asked, avoiding the eyes of his executives, who looked ready to dodge from the room and flee for their lives.
"What we tell everybody who asks. Private security, Mr. Konevitch. You have a rich company. You can afford to hire the best."
Skinny looked like he wanted to say more and Alex glanced in his direction. "If you have something to add, we'd like to hear it."
"All right. Off the record. Between us. And just us, please. These are Mafiya people we're talking about. In case you haven't already gotten the message, they're tough, ruthless, and stubborn. But there is somebody who scares the shit out of these guys."
"Go on."
"KGB people. Former KGB people. They and the Mafiya have been at war for fifty years. Remember the old saying 'it takes one to know one'? A lot of highly trained former operatives are now out on the streets, unemployed, desperate for jobs and willing to work hard. Talented people, a lot of them. They have skills, experience, and attitude. To be blunt, the KGB people are even worse than the Mafiya types."
Alex spent a quiet, troubled moment thinking about the officer's suggestion. He had nothing but rotten memories of the KGB and was privately delighted that he had helped put them out of business. They had booted him out of college and nearly destroyed his life. They very nearly destroyed his country. Under communism, the Mafiya were nothing but a nasty irritant, twobit gangsters engaged in shadowy enterprises that barely made a dent. The real mob was the KGB. It turned itself into the world's greatest extortion racket, a mass of faceless thugs who abused their power endlessly, living like spoiled princes while their people suffered in an asylum of terrified poverty.
No, he decided on the spot: not today, not tomorrow, not ever. No matter how bad it got, he would never employ a former KGB person to work in his company.
Fatty read his disapproving expression and withdrew a business card from his pocket that he smoothly slid across the table. "In the event you change your mind, Sergei Golitsin is the man to call. He was the number two in the KGB, a retired three-star general. Whatever you need, believe me, he can take care of."
The next morning, after four more dead employees of Konevitch Associates were scraped off the cement and hauled to the morgue, Alex called Sergei Golitsin. The door opened loudly and the room filled with noisy voices, a number of people, one or two women and several men, speaking crudely in Russian. Alex had no idea where he was-the car ride had lasted nearly half an hour-a fast trip filled with abrupt, jarring turns probably intended as much to disorient Alex and Elena as to elude any followers. He and Elena were pulled and shoved out of the backseat, then pushed and tugged through a doorway into a building that smelled cloyingly of oil and kerosene. The floor was hard concrete. By the loud echoes of their footsteps, the room was large, cavernous, and mostly empty.
A vacant warehouse, Alex guessed. Or possibly an abandoned garage.
From there, he and Elena were immediately split up and forced into separate rooms. Alex was rushed inside another, smaller room, laid out on what he guessed was a hard table or medical gurney, and the work began. A pair of strong hands untied his shoes, yanked them off his feet, and they landed with a noisy clumpf on the floor. A knife skillfully carved off his pants and shirt, leaving him naked except for his Jockeys.
A different pair of stronger hands efficiently clamped his arms and legs tightly with leather straps attached to the sides of the table. Because of the blindfold, he had not a clue what they had done with Elena, where they had taken her. The only thing Alex was sure of was this: it was no coincidence the kidnapping had taken place on one of the few occasions when they traveled together outside Russia, man and wife, on a business trip. This, more than anything, terrified him.
But he squeezed shut his eyes and somehow forced himself to think. Whoever these people were, they had somehow breached, then eliminated his security. Further, the simple yet elaborate kidnapping indicated they had advance knowledge, somehow, that he and Elena were traveling to Budapest. They were waiting for him. They knew his schedule and movements to a tee. And they were professionals-he was sure of this, for whatever it meant, for whatever it was worth.